Hypatia's Diary, page 28
part #2 of Darwin Lacroix Adventure Series
Abbas followed Zac inside the gate Stevie had marked off to preserve as much of the site as possible. She explained the layout to Abbas as they approached the well.
“Who knows what you have destroyed,” said Abbas, shaking his head. “Now, what about the well?”
“We planned to dig out the inside of it today, when we got distracted with the kidnapping,” said Stevie.
Show me this underground structure you saw on satellite,” said Abbas.
Zac scrolled through photos on his tablet and described how the satellites detected a slight settling of the soil in a straight line between the well and the mountain. "Using multiple nano-satellites gives us a three-dimensional scan for more sensitive views.”
“How deep is this?” asked Abbas.
“Five point four-nine meters,” said Zac.
Abbas tilted his head in disbelief, and Zac pointed to two drones on a makeshift table under a sunshade.
“LIDAR. These babies are accurate to at least fifteen meters, but my start-up is tweaking the algorithms…” He paused as Stevie put a hand on his arm and continued, “Right. We can talk about that another time.
“This means there’s an underground passage from the mountain to the well?” Abbas.
“Yes. Given the description in Hypatia’s diary and the physical evidence,” said Stevie.
Abbas’s mobile rang, and he took the call to coordinate resources coming in from Cairo. A minute later, he looked at them, put a hand over the phone, and said, “Start digging.”
Moammar’s men began shoveling out the sand, but he pulled Zac and Stevie aside and said, “We have a problem with the water table. It has risen since ancient times. The tunnel will be flooded.”
84
The Tomb
At the top of the second switchback, Darwin sat down, saying he needed a brief rest. Eyrún opened a water bottle, and each drank. His leg muscles cramped slightly, and he felt a heaviness spread through his head and chest. He nodded and bumped the wall with his head.
“Darwin?”
He sat forward, pulling his knees up and massaging his temples. “Tired. I’m just tired,” he said.
“When did you last sleep?
“Last night… well, a couple hours maybe, and it was on the floor in the library chamber,” he said.
“What about your last proper meal?”
“Yesterday?”
She made him eat some cheese and dried meat from the small bag of food. A few minutes later, he felt the caloric energy boost.
“What should we do? Can Zac and Stevie get in here? Do you think they’re okay?” she asked.
“One thing at a time,” he said. He drank some water and continued, “I’m sure they’re okay. I saw Zac dive to the side before the rocks hit Fathi. But I don’t think anyone can get in the front entrance, at least not for days, weeks maybe. They’ll go to the back exit and start digging. That means we need to figure out what to do from this side.”
“What about Tessa?” asked Eyrún, putting the food back in the bag and helping each other up.
“We’ll get her out after we get out. It’s a long way back and forth across the mountain, and we need to conserve energy, if she suffers, I’m not worrying about it.”
They reached the first chamber and collected the cheese and pita bread that had been left there. “I have three waters. How about you?” asked Darwin.
“Four.”
“Just under two liters. A day’s worth. Another reason to conserve energy,” he said as they turned into the corridor towards the back of the mountain.
Eyrún led the way this time and kept a slow, steady pace. Darwin paused at the sarcophagus chamber and thought a moment of putting the scroll back under the marble lid, but decided against it. The library belongs in Egypt, but the scroll’s treasures are buried outside of Egypt where Alexander found them. Best to keep it close until we assess its value.
They stopped to rest a few times on the switchbacks and, in less than an hour, reached the small chamber at the top of the steps. “What now?” asked Eyrún as they looked down the stairs.
“I’m not sure. Hypatia didn’t write about water, but it sounded like that tunnel wasn’t long. She wrote she could see light.”
“Swim?”
“Perhaps. The drawing I gave Zac and Stevie should give them an idea of how close it is to the mountain. They told me they found a dwelling near to the mountain and would excavate starting today. But it’s full of sand. They have to dig it out to get to the tunnel level and hope it goes through. We have to wait.”
“How long do you think?”
“Dunno, but they’ll be moving fast. I hope,” said Darwin.
“Let’s wait here then,” she said and directed them to a spot away from the steps. They ate the rest of the food and drank more water. Darwin leaned his head on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Love, for dragging you into this. I had no idea she was so twisted,” he said.
“How could you know?”
“We’ll get out. Zac and Stevie will get through,” he said with a weakening voice. “And then, we’ll go to Mykonos.” A minute later, he drifted off to sleep.
85
The Well behind The White Mountain
The indigo sky faded to black and the stars brightened as darkness settled in the oasis. A small generator growled on the opposite side of the low rock wall and power cords snaked their way to a series of lights around the ruin. Zac descended the ladder after two of Moammar’s relatives climbed out of the well and headed to dinner with their families. Stevie stayed up top to pull up the buckets and empty them.
“Less sand Zac,” Stevie yelled into the well. “The last bucket was too heavy for me to move. Send them up half-full.”
“Got it,” he said attaching a bucket to the line. Earlier, Moammar’s men had rigged a frame and pulley system over the well. “Ready,” he yelled, and the slack tightened as the bucket lifted overhead.
He estimated the well at two meters in diameter as his outstretched arms left a hand-width gap on one side and studied the amount of exposed rock. Halfway to the top of the tunnel, he thought and pressed the shovel into loose sand. Most of it ran off the blade as he poured it into the bucket. Like I ever wanted to do this again, he thought, remembering his last assignment with the Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq.
An hour later, he and Stevie swapped places and, between dumping buckets, he watched a quarter moon rise and highlight the northern ridge of plateaus. He checked the petrol tank in the generator and topped it up.
“Zac! Zac! Where are you?” he heard Stevie yell as he jumped back over the surrounding wall.
“What, babe?” he said, running to the well.
“The sand is getting wet.”
“Really?” He climbed down and found the sand clumping like digging below the sun-baked surface at an ocean beach.
86
The Tomb
Tessa jerked awake. A grunt and the sound of sliding rocks came from her right. “What’s that?” she asked the darkness and cocked her head to listen. Ow. She winced at a crushing pain in her temple and tried to move her hands.
“What the…” she shouted, realizing her legs were also bound. The last thing she remembered was Eyrún throwing the pistol. “Goddammit!” she yelled, and a moment later, “Fathi, where are you?”
A coughing fit followed another grunt.
“Fathi!”
“What?” came his hoarse reply.
“Get over here and untie me.”
A few minutes later, he switched on the light, which she directed him to take from her pocket. “What happened?” he asked, cutting her binds.
“That bitch hit me with something, and they…”, she said, jumping to her feet. “Ooo.” She squeezed her temples, sucked in a breath, and steadied herself. A minute later, the hieroglyphs stopped spinning, and she circled the chamber.
“What are you doing?” asked Fathi.
“Where is it? Dammit, it’s mine,” she spat and winced again from the pain. “He took it. Come on.”
Fathi did not immediately follow, and she returned to find him surveying the remaining supplies. When they had gathered all they deemed useful, Tessa set out again, with Fathi on her heels. At the first switchback, she finished the bottle Eyrún left. He watched the last of their water with the eyes of a dog whose master ate first. She tossed him the half-empty bottle and continued walking. A few minutes later, she paused after crossing the palm trunk bridge and shined the small light down the corridor.
“You lead,” she said, waving Fathi forward. He crept forward leading with his light, but held a knife at the ready in his opposite hand as he had lost the gun.
When they reached the library chamber, Tessa took up a position just inside the door as Fathi moved along the shelving. In less than a minute, he had circumnavigated the room. “Not here,” he said, and they moved on to the sarcophagus chamber. It was also empty.
“They must be at the back exit. It’s where I’d go,” said Tessa as she started down the corridor. Where did you think you were going, Darwin? She grinned, fingering Darwin’s pocket knife.
“Darwin,” said Eyrún, rocking his shoulder. “Darwin.”
“Wh—”
She put a hand over his mouth and whispered, “I hear footsteps. Someone’s coming.”
A moment later, a dim light grew in the corridor, bouncing as it moved closer.
“It’s got to be Tessa,” he said.
“Maybe someone got through,” she said.
“I don’t think so. Too much rock.”
“How did she get untied?”
“Maybe she had a knife. Did you check her pockets?” she asked.
“No,” he said as he stood up and, grasping Eyrún’s hand, helped her stand. “Wait until they get close, then shine your beam in her face.” He rubbed his arms to ward off the coolness of sleep.
“Shit,” Eyrún whispered. “There’s two of them. I thought Fathi was dead.”
“He had no pulse.”
“Pulse can be very weak when someone’s in shock. Siggy told me once,” she said, referring to her sister who was a medical doctor.
“I should have tied him up, too.”
“Nothing we can do about it now,” she said.
“We see you, Darwin,” yelled Tessa. “There’s nowhere to go.”
Eyrún turned on the light. Tessa’s and Fathi’s forms pressed against the wall as if Eyrún had pointed a lethal weapon.
“If you’re still here, it means the exit’s still blocked,” said Tessa and shaded her eyes as she closed the gap between them. A few meters out, she stepped sideways and let Fathi pass, the light glinting off the steel blade he waved it about like a divining rod. Darwin and Eyrún pressed against one wall of the small chamber as Tessa and Fathi entered.
“I’ll take that,” said Tessa, picking up the leather-wrapped on the floor next to Darwin. “Did you read it?”
“No,” said Darwin.
“Are your friends outside?”
Eyrún and Darwin said nothing.
“Oh, come now. I’ve figured it out. They came to the ecolodge posing as lovers to rescue you. And if that didn’t work, it was a smart move to call the antiquities authority as a backup, but their mistake was sending only one man. They didn’t figure on the local police being on our side. Siwa’s a long way from Cairo,” said Tessa.
“Zac had another gun,” said Eyrún. “I saw him try to shoot Fathi.”
Tessa lunged, her forearm pinning Eyrún against the wall and the pocket knife pressing against her neck.
“It was Zac’s gun that nearly killed us,” Tessa breathed into Eyrún’s face.
Darwin moved, but Fathi jumped between them, knife at the ready.
“How does your head feel?” Eyrún said through clenched teeth.
“Tessa!” yelled Fathi, backing up and pushing her off Eyrún. “We need them. She’s right, Zac had another gun. And unless the rocks killed him, we can’t assume the police are in control.”
“Arrgh!” Tessa growled and walked away to look at steps leading down to the water. Fathi moved toward her, looking over his shoulder. Eyrún ran to embrace Darwin.
“Control yourself. We might need them as hostages,” said Fathi to Tessa.
“What about the well?”
“My men know about it, and more will come from the oasis to help us get out,” he said.
She turned. He’s not as stupid as he seems. She looked back at the water below. “What if your men are not in control and someone gets in?” she asked.
“That’s why we need hostages,” he said, nodding towards Darwin and Eyrún.
“Darwin, what do you know about the tunnel exit into the well?” asked Tessa. When he did not answer, she added, “Look, it’s not like the four of us can hide from each other in here. If we don’t get out in a day or so, we’ll all die.”
“The well is in a ruined settlement much closer to the mountain but buried under sand. That’s why we didn’t see anything.”
“How long before they dig it out?”
“Dunno. If it was filled to the level of the plane, it could be five to ten meters. How deep do wells go?” he asked rhetorically.
“And then there’s the water in the tunnel,” said Fathi.
87
The Well
“Zac. They’re calling you,” said Stevie from the well.
He walked from his resting spot against the rock wall and looked in the well. Moammar and one man had come back after their dinner, but he was saying there was too much water.
“Hang on,” said Zac and lowered himself into the well. It was nearing midnight and the buckets had come up with more and more water as the night wore on. Ten centimeters of water now sloshed around the well-bottom. Zac’s feet sunk in the water-logged sand, bringing the water to his knees.
“This does not work,” said Moammar, showing how a bucket filled mostly with water.
“What about the opening?” asked Zac.
Moammar probed the sand on the mountain side of the well. The staff pushed down with relative ease compared to the side away from the mountain.
“That must be the tunnel which means only the well is full of sand. It must slope into the tunnel, but it should be open past that,” said Zac.
“True, but it will still be full of water,” Moammar had replied.
“How the hell are we going to get the water out?” Zac asked.
“I know a man with a large pump,” said Moammar.
“My friend you are a man of many resources,” said Zac slapping him on the shoulder.
Moammar smiled and said, ““But we cannot get the pump until morning.”
88
The Tomb
Eyrún and Darwin sat against the front wall where Tessa told them to sit after leading them all back to the library chamber.
“What’s she doing?” asked Eyrún, adjusting her ankle that was Zip Tied to Darwin’s.
“Reading the scroll, I guess,” he said, looking at a glow spilling around the column where Tessa had gone with Alexander’s scroll. He then scanned the ceiling, its gold stairs faint in the small light Tessa used. Aside from the occasional insect, he had seen nothing living inside the mountain.
A good thing, he thought, knowing that cellulose in papyrus was food for some life forms. He sipped from one of their two water bottles and handed it to Eyrún. Tessa had divided the water, which left each person a little over one bottle.
“What time do you think it is?” asked Eyrún.
“It was about six when the cave-in happened. I asked Abbas the time when I saw him look at his watch just before we got to the entry. How long was I asleep?”
“I don’t know. I cat-napped a little. At least, I remember having a dream.”
Darwin factored a couple hours sleep time and approximated how long it would take Tessa and Fathi to traverse the mountain and their long trek back to the chamber.
“Could be anywhere from four to eight, but that seems long, so let’s say five or six hours. That would make it before midnight,” he said.
“Will they dig in the dark?” she asked.
“I would, and knowing Zac, he will.”
Eyrún looked at the ceiling and said, “I’ve had to dig in Iceland, but the soil was volcanic mud and rock. If it’s just sand, they could probably move a meter an hour. You think?”
“It’s plausible,” he said.
“What do you suppose they know,” she said, nodding toward Fathi, who sat against a pillar, head bobbing against sleep.
“Dunno.”
“We could fight them,” she said.
“They’ve got knives! We can’t risk it. What you did with Tessa was stupid. What if she cut you? Any injury here could be fatal,” he said, focusing on her face.
“Shh, they can hear you,” she said, pointing toward Tessa. “I don’t know why I did it. Maybe because she left you in the desert.”
“I know,” he said and put a hand to her cheek, “but there’s no treasure in the world more important to me than you.”
Her eyes welled up and one tear spilled down one cheek. Darwin wiped it away with the back of his hand and leaned in to kiss her. After a moment, he said, “Let’s get some rest. We’ll need it later.”
On the other side of the chamber, Tessa concentrated on the scroll. My god, this is everything I dreamed of, she thought.
It’s why I hid it for us, said the Hypatia voice.
I don’t need you anymore.
You’re not out of here yet, said the Hypatia voice.
Tessa ignored the voice away as she became mesmerized by Alexander’s descriptions of conquests and the treasures he described. She inhaled sharply at one passage.
We move to Egypt soon and cannot carry gold. While the army took its revenge on the insolent city of Tyre, I used the distraction to bury the 20,000 Talent bribe sent by Darius in an unmarked tomb beneath the temple of Heracles. My personal guards killed the slaves who transported it.
